As a community, we believe that it is not just about sending newsletters or promotional messages; it’s a powerful way to build and maintain relationships with customers, nurture leads, and ultimately drive conversions. We also strongly believe that it’s our responsibility to be trustworthy senders and respect our recipients’ inboxes.

Gmail and Yahoo hold the throne when it comes to email service providers, boasting massive user bases. This means a significant chunk of your target audience likely uses them, making its policies and features crucial to your email marketing success. Now, Gmail and Yahoo are rolling out new spam protections aimed at making inboxes safer and less cluttered.

For Gmail, this will require email validation, easy unsubscription, and they will enforce a Threshold for Spam Rate for senders with more than 5,000 Emails sent to Gmail per day (see details below). 

“Last year we started requiring that emails sent to a Gmail address must have some form of authentication. And we’ve seen the number of unauthenticated messages Gmail users receive plummet by 75%, which has helped declutter inboxes while blocking billions of malicious messages with higher precision. Today, we’re introducing new requirements for bulk senders — those who send more than 5,000 messages to Gmail addresses in one day — to keep your inbox even safer and more spam-free.” (Google Blog)

Yahoo is also turning its focus on domain reputation and sender authentication. The updates to Yahoo Mail mean that if your domain has a poor reputation – often due to sending spam or emails which contain phishing-like activity, you will face much more scrutiny. Additionally, the content of an email will be reviewed much more closely, to ensure it doesn’t contain phishing attempts or other scam-related characteristics.

Yahoo’s approach takes a much more holistic view – considering both the reputation of your domain and the quality of the communications that are being sent.

For Mautic users, this is not just another update to gloss over. These changes will affect how your emails are delivered and interacted with, impacting everything from open rates to click-throughs. So let’s dive in and explore what these new rules mean for your Mautic campaigns.

Ask yourself

• Are you familiar with how to handle email deliverability issues, such as spam filtering?
• What is your current strategy for dealing with email service providers’ varying spam rules?
• How crucial is Gmail for your email marketing strategy compared to other service providers?

Gmail and Yahoo’s New Spam Protections

Gmail and Yahoo are introducing new rules for senders that will impact a lot of people using Mautic to send emails (transactional as well as marketing) to Gmail or Yahoo inboxes.

Bulk Senders Requirements

They are cracking down on bulk senders. If you’re sending more than 5,000 messages to Gmail addresses in a single day, you now fall under a special category with new requirements. For Mautic users, especially those with larger campaigns, this is a pivotal update. Ignoring these changes could result in your emails landing in the spam folder, or worse, not getting delivered at all.

Focus on Email Validation

Email validation is no longer optional; it’s a necessity. Gmail and Yahoo have both emphasized that emails sent to their addresses must be authenticated. This helps in filtering out spam and malicious content. 

For Mautic instances, it means that implementing and monitoring authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is imperative. Not doing so could see your emails sidelined, affecting your campaign metrics.

Enable Easy Unsubscription

Gmail and Yahoo are making it easier for users to opt out of emails they no longer want to receive. Bulk senders are now required to include a one-click unsubscribe feature which is compliant with RFC 8058 and RFC 2369. This was included in Mautic 5.0 and there’s also a backport released in Mautic 4.4.11. 

Threshold for Spam Rate

Another major update is the introduction of a clear spam rate threshold. Gmail and Yahoo haven’t specified the exact rate, but crossing this line means your emails could be flagged as spam. For Mautic users, this requires constant monitoring of campaign metrics. Falling foul of this rule will not only affect your Gmail and Yahoo recipients but could have broader implications for your entire email marketing strategy ad other mailbox providers are sure to follow this lead.

By adapting to these new rules, Mautic users can ensure that their email campaigns continue to reach inboxes, engage audiences, and drive conversions.

Ask yourself

• How are you currently monitoring your spam rates in your Mautic campaigns?
• Do your existing Mautic email templates include a one-click unsubscribe feature?
• Are you familiar with email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, and have you implemented them in your Mautic settings?

Actionable Steps for Mautic Users

There are some essential and recommended actions you can and should take to ensure email deliverability stays high for you when sending to Gmail and Yahoo.

Setting Up Main Email Authentication Protocols for Mautic Users

Email authentication is non-negotiable, especially with Gmail ramping up its spam protection features. Let’s dive into the big three: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, and see how you can set them up for better email deliverability.

SPF (Sender Policy Framework)

• Identify Your Sending Domain: Your SPF record will be a TXT record in your domain’s DNS settings. So start by logging into your DNS provider’s dashboard.
• Create or Edit TXT Record: Add a new TXT record or edit an existing one to include your mail server’s details. A basic SPF record might look like v=spf1 a mx include:yourserver.com ~all.
• Test: Use SPF validation tools to verify the record’s accuracy.

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail)

• Generate a Pair of Keys: You’ll need a public and a private key. Your public key will go into your DNS, and the private key stays in your mail server (Mautic in this case).
• Update DNS Record: Add a TXT record for the DKIM key, it usually looks like k=rsa; p=YourPublicKeyHere.
• Activate and Test: Once added, turn on the DKIM signing in your mail server and test the setup using DKIM validation tools.

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance)

• Start Small: Create a TXT record in your DNS settings for DMARC, start with a ‘none’ policy to collect data first, like v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:reports@yourdomain.com.
• Review Reports: DMARC will send XML reports to the specified email. Review these for issues.
• Tighten Policy: Once confident, you can change the policy from ‘none‘ to ‘quarantine‘ or ‘reject‘ for stricter controls.

Final Thoughts

Regularly check the setup using different validation tools. And be ready to tweak settings as email providers update their algorithms.

Ask yourself

• Have you set up these authentication protocols for your Mautic email campaigns?
• How often do you verify the status of your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records?
• Have you noticed any changes in your email deliverability after implementing these protocols?

Implementing Easy Unsubscription

Mautic gives you the flexibility to customize your email templates, so make use of it. Head over to the “Emails” tab, and within your templates, ensure that you include an unsubscribe link that’s easily visible. Ideally this should be connected with a Preference Centre in Mautic, which allows the user to set their preferences or completely unsubscribe.

Mautic automatically takes care of the one-click unsubscribe if you’re on the latest version.

Monitoring for Spam Rates: Leverage External Tools

While Mautic offers robust analytics, it’s prudent to expand your monitoring arsenal with external tools specifically designed to gauge your sending reputation. Remember, different mailbox providers have different ways to evaluate your email reputation. It’s not only Gmail.

Utilize these third-party tools to get a multi-faceted view.

Here are some vital tools you could consider integrating to get a more holistic understanding of your email performance:

• Sender Score by Validity: Think of this as your email credit score. A higher score generally indicates better email deliverability. This tool uses a rolling 30-day average to gauge where your IP address ranks among others.
• Barracuda Central: This tool offers real-time IP and domain reputation lookups. Use it to check whether your emails are being flagged as spam or passing the legitimate test.
• Customer URL Ticketing System by McAfee: This system allows you to dig deep into various data points such as domain history, associations, DNS, and mail server reputation.
• Google’s Postmaster Tools: If you’re sending a high volume of emails to Gmail users, this tool will provide insights into your IP and domain reputation, as well as any specific delivery errors you need to be aware of. Use this if you’re sending a lot to Gmail.
• Microsoft SNDS: Much like Google’s Postmaster Tools, SNDS provides data on your spam complaint rate and IP sending reputation when sending emails to Microsoft’s email platforms. If you’re sending it to Microsoft, use it.

Using these tools in combination can give you a more nuanced understanding of your email reputation. If Gmail or Microsoft flags your emails, it’s likely other providers will too. So stay vigilant, and keep an eye on these metrics to remain in Gmail’s good graces.

Ask yourself

• Are you currently using any third-party tools to monitor your email-sending reputation?
• How often do you check these external tools for insights into your email deliverability?
• Have you noticed any correlation between the metrics from these third-party tools and Mautic’s own analytics?

Don’t let these changes catch you off guard. Adapt, optimize, and keep your Mautic campaigns running smoothly.

Conclusions

Alright, let’s wrap this up. Email marketing is a cornerstone for businesses, and Gmail and Yahoo are too big a proportion of email users to ignore. Gmail and Yahoo’s updated spam protection mechanisms are levelling up the email game, demanding higher standards for authentication, validation, and user experience.

If you’re using Mautic, you need to get your house in order — fast.

The clock is ticking. Adapt your Mautic templates and implement the latest best practices in email authentication, like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Fine-tune your settings to align with Gmail and Yahoo’s expectations, and keep an eye on your spam rates. Numerous tools are out there to help you gauge your sender reputation, and use them to your advantage.

Don’t sleep on this. Make sure you’re ahead of the game. Stay compliant, stay in the inbox.

Ask yourself

• What specific steps will you take immediately to align your Mautic settings with Gmail’s new spam protections?
• How will you monitor the impact of these changes on your email deliverability and overall campaign performance?
• Do you have a plan for continuous improvement and adaptation as email providers continue to evolve their algorithms and user protections?
• Have you verified your DNS settings after setting up email authentication protocols?

Whether you’re a budding enthusiast just beginning your journey or an experienced marketer seeking to develop your strategies, understanding the different types of emails that can be used when you are communicating with your contacts is vital. In this article, we’ll explore the two primary email categories which you’ll work with in Mautic: marketing and transactional emails. 

We will explore their purposes, significant distinctions between the two, and the importance of the changes coming with Mautic 5.0 and later, where you will be able to send transactional emails even when contacts have opted out of receiving marketing communications. So let’s embark on this adventure and unlock the wonders of email marketing together!

Unveiling the two sides: marketing and transactional emails

Marketing emails: the essence of promoting

Marketing emails serve as potent tools for businesses to connect with their audience, build brand awareness, and drive conversions. They encompass a wide range of email campaigns, including newsletters, promotional offers, product updates, and customer surveys. 

The primary objective of marketing emails is to engage subscribers, nurture leads, and generate conversions. Conversions might mean purchasing something, but equally it could be signing up for an event, attending a webinar, or any other action that you want the contact to take. The important thing here is that you’re trying to promote a specific action or goal to your contact.

Transactional emails: the fundamental pillars of communication

While marketing emails focus on promotion – like the initial, exciting stages of a relationship, where attraction and curiosity are sparked – transactional emails reflect the ongoing, reliable communication and commitment that lay the foundation for a long-lasting customer relationship.

Transactional emails are generally triggered by specific interactions or transactions between the customer and the business. Examples of transactional emails might include order confirmations, shipping notifications, password resets, re-validating consent to contact and account-related updates. 

Transactional emails are often personalized, and provide essential information to customers, enhancing their overall experience with your brand.

The difference between marketing and transactional emails

In summary, transactional emails differ from marketing emails in three key ways:

• Purpose: Transactional emails aim to facilitate a transaction or provide information directly related to a contact’s interaction with a business. Marketing emails, on the other hand, are designed to promote products, services, or events to the contact.
   
• Content: Transactional emails are typically triggered by a specific action and are personalized accordingly, containing specific details relevant to the customer’s action, such as purchase receipts or password reset links. Marketing emails often encompass a broader range of content and while there may be personalization, in general they are tailored to engage a larger audience.
   
• Consent: Transactional emails are considered ‘transactional’ because they do not require explicit consent from the recipient, and therefore do not need to provide an unsubscribe link. By contrast, marketing emails must comply with spam regulations, requiring recipients to provide opt-in consent to receive promotional content and be able to remove themselves from receiving such content.

Working with consent

Email marketers shoulder the responsibility of adhering to legal requirements such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Anti-Spam regulations. GDPR governs the protection of personal data, ensuring that individuals have control over their information and how it is used. When sending marketing emails, businesses must obtain explicit consent from recipients.

However, transactional emails are treated differently under GDPR. As they are crucial for completing a transaction or delivering vital information, they are considered a legitimate interest of both the business and the customer. Therefore, they can be sent to recipients even if they have previously opted out of marketing communications.

As a result, transactional emails typically tend to be delivered into the main inbox rather than the promotions section, for example, because they are deemed to be important and individual, rather than promotional and bulk mailed.

Transactional emails in Mautic 5.0

From Mautic 5.0 onwards, transactional emails will be sent even if the contact has opted out of email communication. They will no longer have an unsubscribe header – because it’s not relevant for a contact to unsubscribe from essential transactional emails.

To maintain compliance, it’s crucial to ensure that when you are sending transactional emails, they are primarily used to serve their intended purpose. 

Marketers should limit promotional content within transactional emails to avoid blurring the lines with marketing messages, where consent is required. By providing only relevant, necessary information, you can leverage the power of transactional emails effectively as part of your marketing strategy.

If you try to send marketing emails as transactional emails – for example to circumvent landing in the Promotions tab or remove the unsubscribe options – it might work for a short while but you will eventually be flagged by your contacts as spam or caught and flagged by email providers’ systems. This can result in catastrophic damage to your deliverability, which can be extremely damaging and difficult to recover from. Don’t do it!

Understanding the potential of transactional emails

Enhancing user experience

Transactional emails offer invaluable touchpoints to build and nurture customer relationships. While marketing emails focus on the broader audience, transactional emails provide personalized interactions directly tied to a customer’s actions. By delivering exceptional transactional experiences, you foster stronger connections and amplify brand loyalty.

Seizing upselling and cross-selling opportunities:

While we have mentioned that you must be careful not to send marketing content as transactional emails, there is some leeway when it comes to including small amounts of highly relevant promotional content within a transactional email.

For example, including personalized product recommendations in a shipping confirmation email can entice customers to explore complementary items or upgrades. Leveraging transactional emails carefully and strategically allows you to maximize revenue potential while providing the all important additional value to customers.

Showcasing a consistent brand identity

Every email, whether marketing or transactional, provides a chance to showcase your brand’s identity. Consistency in design, tone, and formatting across all email types reinforces your brand image. From the logo placement to the choice of language, transactional emails should align with your brand’s essence, leaving a lasting impression on recipients.

Conclusion

As we conclude this expedition into the realm of email marketing, we’ve explored the pivotal roles played by marketing and transactional emails. 

Marketing emails drive engagement and conversions, while transactional emails facilitate seamless transactions and foster customer relationships. 

Understanding the nuances of transactional emails, complying with legal regulations like GDPR, and leveraging their potential for enhancing user experiences and brand loyalty will empower you on your email marketing journey. 

So, embrace the power of emails, and unlock new possibilities in expanding your business horizons!

P.S. If you want some inspiration of great examples of transactional email designs, check out this blog post: https://www.brevo.com/blog/transactional-email-design-examples/

We’ve discussed the need to build better stories around our automation before. Not only does our data need to tell a compelling story, but the processes and workflow that we use should support it as well.

Mautic 2.12.0 has added features and enhancements in the area of Reporting and Filters (as well as few bonus items) that should assist your business in that effort. Effectively gathering the right data, at the right time, for the right story is an essential part of getting the most out of your marketing automation strategy. Here’s what we’ve added:

Reporting and Filters:

• Scheduled Reports: Mautic users can now schedule reports to run and send those reports to specified email addresses when the reports are generated. This provides better reporting visibility to both Mautic and non-Mautic users.
• Segment Reporting: Users can now report on current segment membership so better tracking of marketing activities is achieved. This tracking is connected to the adding or removing of a contact from a segment.
• Contacts Manually Added to Segment Visibility: Now users can see which contacts were added manually, or through a filter, via a new Segment details page.
• Clickable Stats: A user can now click stat labels to view a list of contacts that are included in that metric for web/mobile push notifications and SMS in addition to emails.
• Email Replies: Users will be able to execute campaign actions based on a contact replying to an email sent through a campaign. (Note: Mautic can only monitor a single imap folder and the contact must reply with the body intact in order to know what to attribute the reply to.)
• Contact Companies: Now users will be able to include companies in contact related data sources for reports.

Integrations:

• Improvements to Connectwise: Users can now generate a task in Connectwise based on a campaign action in Mautic. You can also bring marketing groups from Connectwise into Mautic to create segments in Mautic.

Other Updates:

• Themes Update: We’ve added 4 new landing page themes and 4 new email themes! Not only that, but we’ve added a viewport meta tag on all legacy themes to ensure responsiveness to screen-width.
• Twitter: Now users can merge Twitter contacts by matching name.

Growth requires a dedicated process that is powered by relevant information that can steer our strategies in the right direction. We are excited to continue growing Mautic into a solution that will help your business be better equipped to gather and interpret your data.

A huge thank you to those in the community who made the effort to load the beta release of 2.12.0 and test these features, functionality, and fixes that were part of this release.

For more detailed information, you can find the release notes here. If you have any questions, please be sure to reach out to us via the Community Forums, Slack or our social channels (Facebook & Twitter) and we will do our best to help.

If you’re not a community member, we would encourage you to join us! Download Mautic today and start growing your business.

Within the amount of time I’ve been in the Mautic community, I have often seen many questions about best practice for tags; there is no best practice set in stone, you find what works for you in your data structure and test through trial and error if the end-point is functional in the way you require.

For example, a project I currently work on deals with apprenticeships and distance learning courses. When I started this project they segmented their mailing list in 2 different ways:

The first being;

• Professional
• Funded/Apprenticeship
• Employers

And the second;

• Accounting
• Leadership & Management
• Funded/Apprenticeships
• Employers

I setup Mautic and altered the segment structure to look like this;

• Professional (Professional mailing list)
• Accounting (Professional mailing list)
• Leadership & Management (Professional mailing list)
• Funded/Apprenticeships (Funded mailing list)
• Employers (Employer mailing list)

Workflow Using Tags:

This is great when wanting to manually send/schedule broadcast emails, but essentially doesn’t help when you want to use one workflow to manage/send emails to the entire list based on conditions; I’m currently in the process of building a mailing list workflow for the first half of 2018 that will send out emails to the entire mailing list based on tag conditions.

1. Starting with “contact segments” as the source I select all mailing list segments.

2. This is where tags come into play, there is no need to create hundreds of segments to cater to each sector within a specific mailing list so instead I use tags. First, I add a condition to check the segment then I add another condition to specify the tag to check next.

3. The accounting list segments further into areas such as starting an accounting career, promotion/career advancement, bookkeeping, self-employment. I am using tags to prescript the subjects of the email for that segment within that period.

4. I then create two emails, one for bookkeeping and one for all others. Having the knowledge that users on the mailing list are very specific about what they’re interested in helps us select the focal subject and then generalize all other areas.

5. Then it’s just a case of repeating the tag condition for each sector and subject within that segment, then moving on to the next mailing list.

For me this is an optimum way to break down and schedule emails for our mailing list while deciding the subject each monthly email within a list sector (accounting, leadership & management); we also manage to cater to other users on the mailing list that are not interested in that appointed subject.

Working on a 6-month basis you can clone the campaign and at the end of the flow move users to the new campaign that handles the second half of the year.

Are there other best practices that you include in your workflow? Please comment below! Thank you again to Andre Etienne for allowing us to share this valuable content. To find out more information and discover other best practices visit Andre at yourdigital.club.

Have you ever wondered if you could track more than just visits via the Mautic tracking script? I know I did, and in this article I will show you how we can use URL’s to track anything you want.

The Basics

Before we start let’s have a look at these two URL examples. This one is without extra parameter:

https://mydomain.com/page/test/

And here we have the same URL with an extra parameter:

https://mydomain.com/page/test/?email=johndoe@company.com

If you use for example MailChimp or CampaignMonitor to send out marketing emails, consider using this technique. Simply add the email address as a parameter at the end of the URL.

In php one can catch this parameter simply with a:

$email = $_GET[‘email’];

And then proceed to use that parameter for processing. However, there is also a clever way of using the Mautic Javascript to track visitors on your site. Only some slight modifications can make it send off any lead field you want to Mautic.

Get Tracking with Mautic

Here is the default script:

<script>
    (function(w,d,t,u,n,a,m){w&#91;'MauticTrackingObject']=n;
        w&#91;n]=w&#91;n]||function(){(w&#91;n].q=w&#91;n].q||&#91;]).push(arguments)},a=d.createElement(t),
        m=d.getElementsByTagName(t)&#91;0];a.async=1;a.src=u;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
    })(window,document,'script','https://mydomain.com/mtc.js','mt');

    mt('send', 'pageview');
</script>

In short, what this does is simply pass along the identification parameters such as IP address and device fingerprint, together with the page the user is visiting. Now have a look at the script below.

<script>
	function getUrlParameter(name) {
		name = name.replace(/[[]/, '\[').replace(/[]]/, '\]');
		var regex = new RegExp('[\?&]' + name + '=([^&#]*)');
		var results = regex.exec(location.search);
		return results === null ? '' : decodeURIComponent(results[1].replace(/+/g, ' '));
	};
	
    (function(w,d,t,u,n,a,m){w['MauticTrackingObject']=n;
        w[n]=w[n]||function(){(w[n].q=w[n].q||[]).push(arguments)},a=d.createElement(t),
        m=d.getElementsByTagName(t)[0];a.async=1;a.src=u;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
    })(window,document,'script','https://domain.com/mtc.js','mt');

	var email  = getUrlParameter('e');

	if(email !== ''){
		mt('send', 'pageview', {email: email});
	} else {
		mt('send', 'pageview');
	}
</script>

The first function is used to extract a custom parameter from the URL. You can use this function for any parameter you want. Just make sure to pass the correct name to the function. In our case the name is ‘email’.

Below that you can see the default part of the Mautic tracking script. This is not relevant for us. It does what it needs to do, no need to concern us with that for now. Below that you will see a new variable is created with the name ‘email’ and the value it will get is the URL parameter for ‘email’. This means that this variable will hold the content of the URL that comes after ‘?email=’, which should be the email address of the user.

Then we have a short if-statement. This statement simply checks if the email parameter is filled or not. If it is not (which is the case for people that visit your website without a newsletter link) it will simply pass along the usual parameters. But if the email parameter is present it will pass along the usual parameters together with the email address.

Sending a Custom Parameter

You can send this along by adding ‘{email: email}’ to the mt method. Keep in mind that the first string identifies the field you want to pass along. In this case we want to pass along the email, but this could also be any other field like firstname or lastname, or even a custom field you have created. The second string or value is the actual value that needs to be passed along. Since we put the value we got from the URL in the ‘email’ parameter we just write ‘email’ to indicated that we want to pass along the string inside this value.

Lastly, make sure you enable public updating for the fields you want to track using this method. If public updating is not enabled Mautic will simply drop the field. You can do this by going to the ‘Custom fields’ section, then selecting the field you want and changing ‘publicly updatable’ from ‘no’ to ‘yes’.

Congratulations! You can now track custom parameters on your website!

The Possibilities Are Endless

Using the Mautic tracking script this way opens up new ways to identify your contacts. Think about the contact points you have and how you can use them to track different data sets.

If you are using mailing tools like Mailchimp or CampaignMonitor it is super easy to add the add extra parameters to your newsletters. Simply append the extra parameter to all the URL’s in your mail and there you go! In fact, you can use any contact network on point you have and use this methods for the parameters at hand.

Security

We should not forget that we are still handing personal data here. If you are appending sensitive data to a URL make sure you think about handling the data safely. What you could do is hash the parameters and de-hash them in your website before you send them off to Mautic. This way anyone who might come across the link cannot read or use the parameters.

Also make sure to use https, also known as SSL if possible. This is simply an extra layer of security added to the request the user will make. Best practice is to use both SSL for your website as well as the connection between your website and Mautic. You will see in the examples above the I have used https in the code, and not http.

And there you go. Now you know how to track custom parameters with the Mautic tracking script. I cannot wait to see what creative ways you all come up with to use this!

When it comes to rolling up our sleeves and getting to the business of marketing, we certainly know how to execute. We are trained to ask probing questions to understand our audience, where they are in the buying journey and capturing their attention. This is now becoming true of marketing automation.

“What does the data say?”
“What were the results of the A/B test?”
“Did our content strategy work in the last campaign?”

The list goes on. While we are becoming great inquisitors, are we truly solving for the big why? When we consider marketing automation and its role in our business, we should first reflect on it’s purpose. It’s only then that we can fully tap into it’s full potential, lest we relegate it to an auto email responder.

We believe that marketing automation should be more than a bolt on solution. It should be an integrated part of your overall business strategy. Our latest release continues to equip your business with the tools you need to bring that strategy to life.

Enhancements

• Mail is Owner: Emails can now be sent from different senders who are owners of the contact, creating a more personalized experience for your audience. This means if a sales rep is the contact owner, a single email send can appear as though it came from that individual.
• Tweet Entity: Not all tweets are created equal. Recognizing the vital role of social media, it would be simple to create a generic interaction via Twitter. However this doesn’t support an integrated way of thinking. A new channel called ‘tweet’ is available to create tweets to send as part of campaigns. Unique tweets can be created, modified and managed from this new channel.
• Campaign Reporting: Channel and component reports can now be filtered for a campaign. A column called campaign has been added to email asset, landing page and form reports to enable the user to analyze these in the context of a campaign. Powerful flexibility that gives you greater clarity in your marketing.
• Custom Fields: Customizing Mautic to meet the needs of your business is important. And measuring them is even more important. Now you can include your custom fields into your reports giving you more valuable insights.
• Summary Columns: But it doesn’t stop there. Now you can summarize data in reports using the “group by” feature and calculated fields. What does this mean? This enables the user to create relevant summaries for your detailed reports.
• Editor Enhancements: The editor continues to grow. We’ve added two new slots to provide even more customization. The code mode slot lets you put in raw html into the builder giving you needed flexibility. In addition, the dynamic content slot can now be created and edited right from the builder.
• GoToWebinar confirmation link: The GoToWebinar integration has added capability. You can now insert the personalized confirmation link as part of followup emails, creating a seamless user experience.

Integrations

• Salesforce
  • Campaigns: Mautic now supports a bi-directional integration with Salesforce Campaigns! You can create a segment in Mautic and trigger a campaign based on campaign members from a Salesforce Campaign. You can also add contacts as campaign members in a Salesforce Campaign from a Mautic campaign or form action. Extending the integration far beyond sharing of contact, account, and lead detail.
  • Contact link: More Salesforce integration support! Now you can map the Mautic timeline link to a custom field in Salesforce to allow users (like your sales team) view that contact’s activities timeline directly from Salesforce. More data at your fingertips to encourage personalized conversations throughout the buying process!
• One Signal
  • Web Notifications: You can now user your own OneSignal account with Mautic to send Web notifications as part of campaigns.
  • Mobile Push Notifications: Mobile app push notifications are here! Use the One Signal plugin to send mobile push notifications to your iOS or Android app. Now you can create, send and track mobile notifications in Mautic.
• Twilio for SMS: Mautic can now connect to your Twilio account. If your contacts would like to receive communications via SMS, you can connect your Twilio account with Mautic and send SMS messages as part of campaigns. More integrations mean more relevance and personalization.

Whether you are moving prospects through a meaningful buying journey, or adding value at each stage, each area of execution requires a thoughtful consideration of the larger problem you are solving. That makes the tactics of marketing more significant.

We trust that these features, improvements and bug fixes will enable you and your entire business to respond to to each problem statement with clear focus and attention.

Release 2.8 encourages big picture thinking, while taking incredible strides to bring that picture to life for marketers. This release is now available for download to our open source community. For more detailed information, you can find the release notes here. If you have any questions or find new challenges that arise, join our feedback team and reach out to us on the Community Forums, Slack, or social channels (Facebook & Twitter) and we will respond as soon as we are able.

Github

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Undeliverable Email

But is our email marketing campaign being received? So many articles (like this) have been written to help us get our emails where they need to go. Unfortunately reaching the inbox is now more challenging than it has ever been. According to Return Path;

Regardless of the reason, declining inbox placement rates represent a serious concern for marketers. With one out of every five emails failing to land in the inbox, brands are missing out on a full 20% of their opportunities to connect with customers and earn their business.

There are many factors that impact whether our information/offer will get to our intended audience. SendGrid outlines four key components to determine if your email marketing campaign will be delivered. They are;

• Message Infrastructure Health
• Message Content
• Sender History and Filtering
• Receiving System’s Availability

Interestingly enough, you can impact 3/4 of these factors. Can you guess which ones? The only item that is truly out of your control is the receiving system’s availability. All other elements you have the ability to impact or control. It’s not by manipulating spam filters or blasting out 5 times as many emails in one week to gain a better return.

Greater Email Marketing Campaign Returns

So how do we capitalize on the missing 20% and maximize the existing 80%? I’m glad you asked. There are many tactics that will help you achieve this end. But this post is not your typical how-to. I’d like to step back a moment and look at an approach that will guide your email marketing strategy.

The 2015 Deliverability Benchmark Report produced by Return Path, states that the greatest email delivery rate was achieved by industries that relied the heaviest on customer relationships. Think about that for a moment. The greatest returns are not achieved by the best technology, the most creative campaigns, or the highest budget. These results were due to the development of deep customer relationships.

So if the key to getting your email marketing campaign delivered is deep customer relationships, how do we foster them? As we connect with our customers and influence our buyers via email, we must consider the following elements to effectively reach them.

• Trust: We know that all relationships are built on trust. Why is it so difficult to realize? Because trust is developed over time and requires many interactions. It requires patience. Industries like retail, health & beauty and apparel achieve stronger placement because they are typically high-touch environments. Real interactions with real people provide greater levels of trust. If you want to connect with your audience, humanize your interactions. Make it personal. Understand the need in the context of their environment, and deliver value in a meaningful way. John Kottcamp says it best;
  

  Companies that excel at delivering rich, personalized online experiences not only produce more loyal customers but also outperform their competition on the stock market, according to a recent five-year study conducted by Forrester Research. (source: MarketingProfs)

  Personalized means more than tagging a first name in the greeting. It means gaining a deeper understanding of where they have visited, what their interests are, and connecting your value to that information in an authentic, meaningful way.

• Analysis: Developing trust in a relationship is like strengthening a bridge between you and your customer. It starts on shaky ground and then begins to gain strength as you continue to provide value according to their need in the moment. As you interact with your customer, it is important that you never stop listening. Listening or analyzing the feedback they provide in the form of interactions with you and your brand. This requires time and talent. The proper analysis of traffic and customer data will further ensure that you are a trusted provider. Data is a double-edged sword. It can make you a relevant star, or it can make your brand feel disconnected and irrelevant. Which leads us to our final point.
• Relevance: I was at the local coffee shop the other day, chatting with a friend. We were having a discussion about how many vacationers were stopping in. A gentleman overheard our conversation and tried to make a joke, but it turned out to be an awkward moment as we didn’t understand what he was referring to. This was not about his joke, but about the fact that in that moment we could not relate what he was saying to our conversation. This made his joke awkward and irrelevant. The point is, if you want to develop trust with your audience, you must be able to relate to them in the proper context.
  

  “Achieving such personalization requires knowing deep context: not just a customer’s demographic data but also the time and location she accessed content, the search terms she used to find it, the referring site that directed her toward it, and—most important—her behavior before, during, and after consuming it…” (source: John Kottenkamp)

This approach works. Maximizing each email marketing campaign begins with content that builds trust, is built on proper analysis and is relevant to the customer.

Relevancy is the marketer’s secret weapon, and the fastest path to revenue. Emails with personalized subject lines are 26% more likely to be opened and marketers have found a 760% increase in email revenue from segmented campaigns. (source: Campaign Source)

In summary, the ability to deliver your email marketing campaign is not based on whether you can sidestep spam filters. It is in your ability to develop trust with your customers. If you can not do this with confidence, take the time you need to develop your marketing and communication strategy with these important elements at the helm.

These recommendations are simply the tip of the iceberg. What are other ways you’ve discovered help your email marketing campaign get delivered? Share them in the comments below!